University of Virginia Library

Authorship

Unfortunately, as has been observed, the attempt to identify the author of the MS as Webster ran instantly into controversy. It will be necessary to resume some of the arguments briefly before bringing some other evidence into play and making our own conclusion. Pryor's sale-catalogue attempted to make the case for Webster from a variety of angles. First, he argued on the basis of stylistic resemblance, citing the similarity between Lorenzo's verbal manner and the satiric mode of Flamineo in The White Devil and Bosola in The Dutchesse of Malfy.[13] He explained the connexion between the MS and Shirley's The Traitor by presuming that the former was a source for the latter, and discussed the various opinions extant concerning Shirley's other source(s). He then returned to considering the similarities between the subject-matter and characters of the MS and Webster's two principal tragedies, and also considered other dramatic sources for the MS, such as Hamlet, Marston's plays, and Jonson's Sejanus, (there is a reference to Sejanus in l. 137 of the MS, which might be to the play rather than to the historical character). From these he attempted to date the MS, lighting on the 1606-1609 period. Despite all the territory he surveyed, the only real argument he was able to advance for thinking the play Webster's was stylistic.[14] Unsatisfactory though this may be, it convinced the German critic and translator of Webster, Alfred Marnau, whose long familiarity with Webster's style from a translator's special viewpoint encouraged him to agree with Pryor that the MS is authentically Webster's. Two English scholars, Richard Proudfoot and Muriel Bradbrook, have been much more reserved in their responses.[15]

A natural objection to thinking that the play of which the MS is a

part is Webster's is that he makes no mention of it anywhere. We know from his Preface to The Devils Law-case that he wrote a play about the Duke of Guise; in the same sentence he refers to "others" in addition to it, The White Devil and The Dutchesse of Malfy. Samuel Sheppard, in some laudatory verses written in 1624-25, speaks of Webster's "three noble Tragedies";[16] and—presuming the Guise to have been a tragedy—this leaves no room for the play of the MS. However, it is conceivable that the Guise may have been a "bitter" tragi-comedy like The Devils Lawcase, or that Sheppard may have been mistaken. And of course there is no physical evidence (a) that the MS was itself ever finished; (b) that if it was, it was itself necessarily entirely tragic in mode; (c) that the play was entirely one author's work; (d) that even if completed it was ever staged.[17] All that can be said with certainty is that the MS is not all of the play that ever existed (the numeral 2. at the top of fol. 1r implies beyond reasonable doubt a preceding sheet), and that James Shirley did indeed write a play about these characters.

This brings us to the controversy initiated by Shapiro, who declared bluntly, "It should have been obvious to anyone studying the Melbourne manuscript that it is a rejected early version of the second scene of Shirley's The Traitor", and commented that "readiness to accept, as reliable, 'conclusions' based only on stylistic 'evidence' by 'literary critics' (academic or other) has betrayed generations of undergraduates, and also some seniors."[18] Shapiro's authority is formidable, and his caveat well-taken, but what he declares to be "obvious" is not so to us. His own arguments are developed from two scholarly, rather than literary, bases: that the handwriting of the MS is recognizable as Shirley's, and that the provenance of the MS argues strongly for Shirley rather than Webster as the author.

There is a possible connexion between Shirley and the Cokes (set out at length in Shapiro's TLS letter of 4 July): Thomas Coke, Sir John's younger son, was at Gray's Inn at the time when Shirley, who was admitted to the Inn in January 1633/4, was appointed to write the masque, The Triumph of Peace, which was presented in February 1633/4. Thomas wrote in October 1633 about the forthcoming revels, and this interest, combined with the fact that Shirley was probably friendly with other members of the Inn before his admission, perhaps including Sir John Coke the younger, leads Shapiro to the conclusion that "We should not therefore be surprised to find that a sheet of manuscript from an early draft of Shirley's The Traitor was in 1640 lying discarded at Gray's Inn, and used for wrapping up a packet of documents."[19] Certainly this scenario is plausible, but it is not inevitable. Pryor himself believed the MS had been used as a source for The Traitor, and consequently

that it must have come into Shirley's hands. Even if it were not exactly a source, there is nothing impossible in Shirley's having in his possession another dramatist's unwanted manuscript on the same subject as his intended play. And even if Shirley himself was not the means by which the MS came into Coke's hands, there are other possible scenarios to account for it. But here we wander into unprofitable speculation. It is preferable to turn instead to the palaeographical issue.